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Virgin and Child with an Angel
Sandro Botticelli (Italian, 1444/45–1510)
1475–85
- Medium
- Tempera on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 85.8 × 59.1 cm (33 3/4 × 23 1/4 in.); Framed: 106.7 × 80.1 × 7.7 cm (42 × 31 1/2 × 3 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Max and Leola Epstein Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
In this humanizing yet idealized depiction of the Virgin Mary embracing the baby Jesus, Sandro Botticelli conveyed the sacred beauty of maternal love. Mary, her expression soft and her skin luminous, nuzzles her son’s chubby cheek as he grasps the nape of her neck. An angel, smaller in scale, looks on adoringly. Highly celebrated in his own lifetime, Botticelli developed a distinctly sentimental and tactile style of painting for both religious and secular subjects.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
